


The Fourteen Fears Camped With Me

by FriendshipCastle



Series: Spookums Radio Anthology [7]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Camping, Gen, Poetry, Smirke's Fourteen Fear Categories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:14:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26336266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendshipCastle/pseuds/FriendshipCastle
Summary: Smirke's Fourteen Fear Categories used to describe some very specific moments during my September 2020 camping trip. It was too nerdy to not share.
Series: Spookums Radio Anthology [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772725
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. The Web

**Author's Note:**

> I took a socially-distant, three-day backpacking trip to the woods of Washington State with three friends who aren't in the fandom. I missed the opener of TMA Season 5 Act 2 until I came home but I still did think about the podcast a lot while I was out of cell phone range. On the bank of a creek I was too cold to swim in, while my friends cliff-jumped and splashed around and shivered, I wrote fourteen poems; one for each fear, excluding the Extinction because in the midst of a pandemic, far from human amenities, blending into the forest as much as I could, it was a little too easy to imagine how the world would scab over without us. 
> 
> The idea of all human fears boiled down to fourteen was, ultimately, what got my category-loving ass into listening to The Magnus Archives back in March 2020. I have no idea who else to share these poems with, and Hic wanted to read something I wrote for TMA that had no spoilers, so this is for me and for her, and for you if you're still curious.

**The Web**

Spiders in the tent when it was unfurled for the year,  
and when it is rolled up at the end.  
Gossamer fills the hiking trails in the gaps between parties of wanderers.  
In the spotlight of a headlamp, a many-spindle-legged thing staggers in circles  
and the light moves on before the creature picks a direction.  
How many more are out there, unseen?


	2. The Spiral

**The Spiral**

It’s just around the bend. Just past this log, we reach our destination.  
No, this log. Perhaps the next snag, the one with vines  
crawling down the twisted trunk.  
It’s been a year since we last visited. Some things have changed.  
It should be just around the next curve of the trail. Or perhaps  
the next one?


	3. The Buried

**The Buried**

Rocks the size of cars rest in the river, splitting the water.  
There is no sign of the movement that brought such boulders  
here. They fell centuries ago.  
The creek is deep, the rocks smoothed by time.  
Underfoot, stones shift gently. They wait.  
They will move again, someday.


	4. The Corruption

**The Corruption**

Sharp, probing noses sink into tense flesh  
and sup, leaving red marks like a kiss.  
You were chosen, you were enjoyed  
and appreciated. You cannot forget it,  
gratitude raised bright and itching on your skin.


	5. The Dark

**The Dark**

The center of the pool was a deep green-blue,  
nearly black, but when pulled up,  
water poured clear down the sides of the plastic water bottle.  
The filter pushed more clear water out.  
The darkness is not inherent in the water,  
but it is a warning.


	6. The Eye

**The Eye**

All is trees, pine needles soft with time and decay,  
silence, bare skin, cold water closing over sunwarmed bodies.  
A flash of color unnatural in nature and waterproof-slick, unexpected.  
The trail overlooks all on display.  
Don’t look up, or else you’ll know if they looked  
(and did not look away).


	7. The Stranger

**The Stranger**

Headlamps in the dark illuminate the ground or the bleached bark of trees,  
but the tents are unfamiliar now and unknown voices call, “Hello?”  
We do not know you, stranger, and the pandemic means  
we do not welcome your intrusion.  
Pull up your mask, the kerchief you wear around your neck,  
turn your headlamp to the left,  
and go.


	8. The Vast

**The Vast**

The streak of pale waterfall plunging down the rocks  
pours into a deep teal basin, water clear enough to see  
there is no bottom.

Shelves of rock jut from the sides  
but all falls away at the center.  
The sun sets, first behind the valley mountains,  
then behind the deep curve of the world,  
and stars peel open their eyes.

On the cliff overlooking the pool, cool breaths of breeze  
are interrupted by unexpected warm winds,  
hot and damp as the sigh of some massive animal,  
invisible in the night  
and unheard over the steady roar of the waterfall.

In the center of the forest pool, floating, looking up,  
a shivering shape in the center of two vast expanses—  
the icy water too disturbed to reflect the stars  
and the airless gasp of the universe  
where lights are too distant to touch each other.


	9. The Desolation

**The Desolation**

A campfire smell wafts through the forest, safe behind stones.  
A lit cigarette sends a smoke spiral into the canopy.  
The moss is dry. The wind off the water is cool but strong.  
The fire pops and crackles behind its low stone wall,  
the logs black against twisting brightness. Sparks rise.  
Sparks float far. The water is far, far below.  
It would be easier to run into the river and splash away downstream  
than to ferry it up to try and drown something  
when it bursts beyond its flimsy stone border.


	10. The Hunt

**The Hunt**

A single silken thread from the sky,  
one worm’s tether  
homespun from its own body,  
a clear path  
for the spider to follow on unhurried tiptoe,  
and the worm writhes  
but does not let go  
of the only home it has ever made.


	11. The Flesh

**The Flesh**

Aching feet, shoulders, knees. A chain of chafing  
and blushing pressure bruises  
from packs heavy with trail mix, tuna, water, salami, jerky…  
Muscles burn, tendons crackle and clench against pain.  
The weight to sustain life hangs heavy on shaking bones.


	12. The Lonely

**The Lonely**

A single tent. A backpack. A pair of shoes neatly lined up  
just outside the rain fly. A single meal. A headlamp. A book.  
The sounds of a river and mice scurrying and, sometimes, the wind.  
Nowhere to be. No deadlines. No cell phone service.  
No rescue without luck and a loud plastic whistle close to hand.  
The woods take some people without even a whimper.


	13. The Slaughter

**The Slaughter**

Three inches of black steel flip open  
and it’s hard to control it, close the blade after it cuts  
an apple or a chunk of cheese. It wants to open  
at each dark sound in the moon-drenched night.  
Clasp it close, clasp it closed.  
It wants to open.  
It wants to cut.


	14. The End

**The End**

While purpose is more of a journey than a dictate,  
each human life is a universe of its own, a constellation  
of moments that will never be truly shared with anyone,  
no matter how close and twisting lives grow. 

The grief of life's inevitable ending should mourn  
this entire experience, never to be replicated,  
never mirrored or captured or repeatable  
(no matter the lab conditions),  
vanishing. Like it meant nothing.

Impermanence enforces value, but grieve  
the ease with which a perspective is lost,  
the end taking away the possibility  
of learning someone’s full story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _sonder_ (noun, neologism) Definition: The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it.


End file.
